Software as Services

In the best-informed blog on software-as-a-service and on-demand business applications, Phil Wainewright cuts through the vendor spin, analyzes the trends to watch and adds his thought-provoking insig

Phil Wainewright

Since 1998, Phil Wainewright has been a thought leader in cloud computing as a blogger, analyst and consultant. He founded pioneering website ASPnews.com, and later Loosely Coupled, which covered enterprise adoption of web services and SOA. As CEO of strategic consulting group Procullux Ventures, he has developed an evaluation framework to help ISVs and enterprises select cloud platforms, and advises US and European vendors on messaging, positioning and go-to-market. His newest role as an industry advocate is vice-president of EuroCloud.

Codenamed Titan, the multitenant next release of Dynamics CRM is available to partners from today in a Technology Access Preview. But can its host-me, host-you architecture please all the people all the time?

That small query box with the Google 'G' alongside has already guaranteed Mozilla's future for several years to come, and it illustrates how applications will get funded not by ads but by embedding direct links to other services.

In the Internet era, collaboration is an essential component of customer relationship management (CRM). Yet few CRM suites incorporate more than rudimentary collaboration. Internet-based selling demands more engagement with the customer than this.

Here's a selection of 2007 SaaS predictions from Microsoft's Gainpaolo Carraro, a number of Enterprise Irregulars including Jeff Nolan, Dennis Howlett and Charles Zedlewski, and analyst firms IDC and Saugatuck.

SaaS is just part of a wider move towards Internet-based automated services, an all-embracing trend that will drive several other sub-trends. This post comprises five separate predictions, all derived from the underlying services mega-trend.

The news that several dozen Gmail users have irrevocably lost the contents of their email inboxes ironically provides conclusive proof that Gmail's retention policy really is as minimal as the company claims

In withdrawing its seminal search API, Google signals its failure to emulate the success of Amazon in monetizing API services. Will Google now face up to its true destiny or will it retreat further into Web 1.0 business models?

Earlier this year, I got flamed for daring to suggest that universal connectivity was just a pipedream. But now some of the poster children of Web 2.0 are bringing out offline clients. Expect many more in 2007.

There's a paradox at the heart of Google's success that highlights the location of its Achilles' heel. A paradox that gives Google no incentive to fix the vulnerability until a competitor starts exploiting it.

I will be out later on so I won't be able to listen in to Marc Benioff's noon webcast today. But I'd say it's a dead cert that Benioff will use the occasion to up his company's forecast revenue guidance for the current quarter.